Staff Member

New England Patriots star linebacker Jerod Mayo is undoubtedly the biggest name in this football family.

According to his younger brother Deron, though, he’s not the undisputed champion in every activity.

“When we’re not working out, we play a little ping-pong sometimes in the basement or we’ll go upstairs and play some video games,” Deron said. “The last match we had in ping-pong,

I beat him. He hasn’t played me in a while because, I think,

I whooped him so bad.”

The ping-pong series is currently postponed while Deron auditions for a job in the Calgary Stampeders’ defensive corps.

There’s no doubt the 24-year-old has some linebacking skills in his blood.

Jerod, who is two years older and a couple of inches taller than Deron, is entering his fifth campaign with the perennial powerhouse Patriots. He was the AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award winner in 2008, was named to the Pro Bowl two years later and was a starter in the Super Bowl this past season.

Kevin Glenn is admittedly still getting comfortable as a member of the Calgary Stampeders’ organization and apparently he hasn’t yet been informed of the cardinal rule — whatever you do, don’t say anything flattering about those no-good guys in green.

Glenn, who celebrated his 33rd birthday Tuesday, is the most experienced arm on the Stamps’ roster and figures he owes his some of longevity to his days with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, where his boss was longtime CFL quarterback Danny Barrett.

“I still revert to things that Danny taught me back when I was in Saskatchewan my first three years. And I’m always telling people that could have been one of the best things that ever happened to me — coming into this league and having a coach like Danny who actually played the position up here, and I had an opportunity to learn that kind of stuff from him at an early age and early in my career,” Glenn said after Tuesday’s morning practice session at McMahon Stadium.

“I think that’s been one of the things that has helped me stay in the league this long. That, and I must be doing something right on the field.”

Glenn arrived in Calgary as a key part of the off-season swap that sent longtime starting signal-caller Henry Burris to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Calgary Stampeders offensive tackle Na’shan Goddard was definitely planning to tune into Tuesday’s opening game of the NBA Finals.

He just wasn’t sure which team he’d be rooting for.

“I have two good friends that play for both teams — Daequan Cook for the Oklahoma City Thunder and Norris Cole for the Miami Heat,” Goddard said. “They both went to my high school.

I grew up with those guys.

“It’s kind of a gift and a curse because I don’t who I’m going to cheer for.”

They won’t become the first grad of Dunbar High School in Dayton, Ohio, to win a ring.

In fact, the 29-year-old Goddard owns a pair of Super Bowl mementoes — having won the NFL’s big prize in 2008 with the New York Giants and 2010 with the New Orleans Saints.

“It’s just great to see them excel at what they’re doing, and it’s great for our high school,” Goddard said. “Now, our high school has two Super Bowl rings, we’ve got a No. 1 overall draft pick in (former NFLer) Dan Wilkerson and now we’re going to have an NBA championship. So it’s a great time for Dunbar High School.”

It’s two weeks before LaMarcus Coker celebrates his 26th birthday and, relatively speaking, the Calgary Stampeders speedy running back is in a solemn mood.

This, remember, is a gentleman who seemingly was born with a smile on his face, a guy with a wisecrack for any situation, none of them terribly mean-spirited.

Most folks get bummed about turning 40 or 50. For Coker, 26 is hitting home.

“It’s been kind of been heavy on me,” admitted the second-year Stampeder on Tuesday. “I just thought that at this point in my life, things would be a lot better than they are. Not that they’re bad. But I just feel like it’s time for me to come into my own.”

Understand, Coker knows he’s used up what little capital he had in the bank of second chances. He was a high school prodigy in Nashville, recruited by elite NCAA teams across the country before settling on the University of Tennessee, where he led the Vols in rushing in his freshman year in 2006.

Edwin Harrison resisted the temptation to throw himself a full-scale pity party after pulling his hamstring on Day 1 of Calgary Stampeders training camp.

But the hulking left tackle couldn’t help but feel a just a tad sorry for himself. After all, he is considered one of the best at his position in the Canadian Football League — when he is healthy. A torn pectoral muscle sidelined the affable Houston native for the first nine games of the 2011 season. And now a wonky hamstring has the 27-year-old playing spectator yet again. What gives?

“It’s frustrating, to say the least,” Harrison said on a beautiful sunny Tuesday morning at McMahon Stadium. “To have it carry over to the season, that would absolutely kill me.”

Down in the dumps over the latest war-wound, Harrison found himself avoiding the world a little due to his sombre mood. He didn’t call his mom. Didn’t call his dad. Then his mother Linda sent a text Monday morning asking her boy to call. Fully aware of her son’s predicament, Linda proceeded to provide a news update from Houston, Texas.

J’Micheal Deane’s path back to the Calgary Stampeders’ offensive line has been a tedious one.

Officially, the second-year Michigan State product has been sidelined by a strained calf muscle he picked up in a rookie camp session a week and a half ago.

But the six-foot-five, 312-pounder admitted Tuesday after taking part in just his second practice of training camp that the lingering after-effects — both physical and mental — of the broken leg he suffered last October in Toronto are still slowing him down.

“It feels good to get out there and do some stuff, but I still have to get past the mental block of favouring the (leg),” Deane said. “Even when I wasn’t practising, you would see me favouring one leg. But Patty (Stamps director of medical services Pat Clayton) told me I need to get out there and get past that mental block.

“Just using it and do football drills has been helping with the healing process.”